How, under the lights of the climate crisis mounts, integrate energy issues, both in our
daily practices and activists in a social project updated? ---- The Industrial Revolution,
which developed from the nineteenth century and has transformed the planet was made
possible by the frenzied exploitation of fossil fuels. First the charcoal, and then by
increasing the oil. Today, the prospect of resource depletion and the engagement of
climate change will make inevitable mutation of human societies ... They can not survive
by becoming sober energy. ---- Revolutionaries can not simply refer the matter after the
revolution. We face two challenges today, in reality deeply nested one inside the other:
on the one hand contribute to the development of elements of a transition to an ecological
society and secondly define the major changes social that will allow a low energy society
to meet the needs of its members, updating our social project is a key element of our
struggle to anticipate changes to an ecological society.
Does this mean that within capitalist society it is possible to build large-scale change
that? We think not. But that does not mean that there is nothing to do today, or that the
development of such alternatives can be done without a strong link with social and
ecological struggles ...
The capitalist legacy
Above all we need to know the state of affairs today. Let us simplify the matter, on the
situation in France. CO2 emissions are reached 5.04 tonnes per capita in 2011 (64th in the
world), when the global average was 4.50 tons [ 1 ]. Obviously this classification is not
sufficient to assess the significance of changes needed in energy use. Recall that
[footprint 2 ] French, which is half due to CO2 emissions [ 3 ], is now estimated to
average 5 hectares per person while the planet has only 1.8 hectares inhabitants [ 4 ].
In 2012, the energy consumed (measured at the end user) in France is divided between the
households (29.8% of total final consumption), the tertiary sector (14.7%), the transport
sector (31.9%), industry (20.8%) and agriculture (2.9%). All sectors, petroleum products
are the first form of energy consumed representing 41.8%. Followed by electricity (24.4%),
gas (20.8%), thermal renewable energy - wood, biofuels, biogas and waste - (9.7%) and coal
(3.4%) [ 5 ]. Electricity comes to 75.8% nuclear, 14.6% of renewable energy sources
(mainly hydropower 11.2%) and 9.6% of fossil power plants. And fossil fuels account for
68% of energy consumption, 19% nuclear and renewables only 13%.
This brief review can get an idea of the scale of the changes needed for the French
economy continues to destroy the planet. The "Grenelle 1" law sets a target of a fourfold
gas emissions greenhouse 2050. This corresponds to the target set at the Kyoto Protocol to
contain global warming to a level of 2-degree rise beyond which the climate change "will
result in an increase in extreme weather events, a rise in sea level, advanced deserts,
etc.., with the cohort of human drama and soaring costs that these phenomena will cause "[
6 ].
What about today? In 2010, globally, were released 50.1 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent in
the atmosphere, 20% more than in 2000. Certainly France can boast a more positive. "In
2012, emissions of France at the perimeter of the Kyoto Protocol amounted to 490 Mt eq.
CO2, a decrease of 12% compared to baseline (...). This downward trend is due to all
mitigation measures, including improving industrial processes, enhanced building
insulation, renewable energy use, etc.. " [ 7 ] Probably should be added to account for
this assessment, the impact of economic slowdown due to the crisis and especially the
process of deindustrialization deported pollution to the South.
Ambitious goals
When a country claims to be virtuous by posting a 12% decline in 22 years, then it is
necessary to achieve a 75% reduction by 2050, and this decline is actually mainly a shift
pollution in other countries, it appears that it is the whole of the current economic and
social system that is incapable of solving the climate crisis. There is not and there can
not be a capitalist solution to the ecological crisis, if only because without "GDP
growth", the capitalist system can not survive. Also, improvements in energy efficiency or
renewable energy barely offset the growth in energy costs due to the increase in GDP ...
The energy in an ecological society
Ecological society that we are calling for will not be a society that will give technology
or in which men and women should live under a restriction. Take the example of the habitat
that now accounts for a third of the energy consumed in France. Today, we know how to
build houses "positive energy", ie that produce more energy than they consume. Obviously
this involves a significant technological level.
In addition, ecological society, breaking with capitalism is necessarily an egalitarian
society. The company will generate a lot more collective way of life, where many goods and
services - washing machines, computers, video resources, cars ... - will be shared within
several blocks of homes. This will drastically reduce the necessary welfare production and
produce more expensive goods, but fewer and especially rid of planned obsolescence [ 8 ]
dear to capitalists. The example of agriculture where most of the energy consumption
related to the production of inputs for agro-industry, shows that it is possible by the
implementation of technical changes - in this example agriculture biological - to greatly
reduce energy costs associated with the production ... In addition, many economic sectors
which in reality does not correspond to the needs of men and women, but to generate
profits, will be abandoned or nearly abandoned: advertising, packaging, production of all
these useless gadgets that abound in consumer societies. There will be no race to
incessant change materials imposed without advertising campaign. Not to mention all the
functions of law enforcement, supervision and commissioning of the population not only to
enable the survival of unequal societies.
Energy transition
The issue of transport, which also consume a third of the energy in France will result in
a fundamental change. First with regard to the transport of goods which will be reduced to
a minimum by implementing a productive autonomy of each region portion. Then the commuting
people also will be reorganized, in part by refocusing on the local economy and secondly
by the systematic implementation of free public transport. The question of how the
carriage of leisure will be managed collectively in self-management structures of the
population respecting the balance between the wishes of the people and protecting the
environment.
To conclude on this point, an ecological society will favor providing its members to
health services, education, housing benefit of running water, energy and means of
communication, access to culture .. . Collective life will be richer, allowing greater
collective solidarity, better support for people experiencing weakness and putting an end
to these great solitudes of modern cities. This company will be sober energy, the only way
in ending the exploitation of fossil fuels, reduce emissions enough greenhouse gas
emissions. Today, beyond the ideological struggle, it is possible to achieve progress
towards a low-energy society. The means for this are multifaceted, reflecting the global
nature of the energy issue.
It is possible to popularize the experiments of energy-saving and implementation of
renewable energy resources, wind, small hydro, solar, biomass ... and these actions result
in a significant proportion of the population. These experiments can take the path of a
community housing to collectivize many hardware and building human relations without
domination today.
Alternative methods
It is also possible to work, whether in agriculture or crafts with alternative methods of
using eco-friendly materials to build biogas plant vegetable waste. Promote the
consumption of "short circuit" is the same logic. All these forms of experimentation
already reducing emissions of greenhouse gases measurably and especially to promote the
development of energy-efficient technologies. But obviously believe in a progressive
generalization of these logics, without questioning the capitalist organization of society
would fall imposture.
One of the major obstacles hindering the progress of these logics is the massive
dependence of the population in the capitalist ideology, the "need to eat" that locks in
the submission to the capitalist order. This is not a propaganda for the "voluntary
simplicity" it will be possible to detach swathes of the population of this dependence.
The energy transition will not be built in connection with the emergence of
against-society capable of organizing excluded with those who reject the life that
capitalism seeks to impose and to build a more enviable life . But such against-society,
linking all experiments for energy sobriety and another lifestyle, risk of isolating this
segment of the population and sterilize this perspective.
It is therefore essential that this cons-build company in connection with the rest of the
dominated classes; build more bridges between those who want to break with the consumer
society and the great mass of the proletariat who enroll. This convergence can only be
achieved and within social and ecological struggles. Militant and revolutionary militants
who act both within the social struggles that ecological struggles on this important
responsibility. Build convergence between social and ecological struggles is nowadays a
challenge, both logics are separated. How to take into account the aspirations expressed
in the social struggles on employment, wages, working conditions, the right to retire in
the context of fighting against the destruction of nature, how to take account the need to
fight against the release of greenhouse gas emissions by the social movement while these
fights are often experienced as contradictory?
This is probably one of the fundamental today for revolutionaries issues. If we do not
give ourselves the means to overcome this contradiction, the struggle for an ecological
society will be lost! Yet tracks exist that we must work. First and foremost, multiply
activists bridges through a joint draft social transformation and joint actions by
developing whenever possible convergences between the two fights. And remember that the
main emitters of greenhouse gas emissions in unequal societies are in the bourgeoisie, and
the struggle for wealth sharing is a precondition for a low-energy society.
Jacques Dubart (AL Agen)
[ 1 ] website "The World Bank" data.worldbank.org . See section "CO2 emissions (metric
tons per capita)"
[ 2 ] This notion is a resource estimate produced by the earth per unit of floor space
available. Obviously humanity can not permanently, as it does today consume more than the
Earth produces.
[ 3 ] Source: Ministry of Ecology, Energy, Sustainable Development and the Sea
[ 4 ] 2012 Report on the State of the World published by WWF in collaboration with the
Zoological Society of London and the Global Footprint Network
[ 5 ] Compass - Key figures of energy, Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and
Energy,
[ 6 ] See www.developpement-durable.gouv.fr
[ 7 ] www.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/Emissions-de-la-France, 33791.html .
[ 8 ] A set of techniques to reduce a product's life in order to increase the replacement rate
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» France, Alternative Libertaire AL #240 - Energy issue: Social ecology against the deadly capitalism (fr, pt)